


Absence and the Heart and blah blah blah

by Thistlerose



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen, Gen Fic, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-11
Updated: 2010-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-11 16:23:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim's five fondest childhood memories of his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absence and the Heart and blah blah blah

Jim Kirk grew up considering his father the more constant of his two parents. He was dead, after all, and the dead didn't go anywhere – except Heaven, his grandma told him, _if_ they'd been good, and Jim knew that his dad had been very, very good. That was kind of why he was dead.

His mom, on the other hand. She was good too, though not _dauntingly_ so. She wasn't _so_ incredibly good that people – his grandma, his teachers, some of the Starfleet guys he and Sam met when they went to the Riverside Shipyards to watch a launch or landing – were going to talk about her in hushed voices, or tell him how lucky he'd be if he had half her nobility/bravery/what the fuck ever.

She wasn't _so_ good that Jim lived in constant fear of losing her. She wasn't the stuff of legends, his mom. She was just this fun gal who swung down from the stars to light up his young life every now and then.

Not that he didn't resent her frequent absences. He really did. In fact, there were times he was sure he hated her, and he'd tell Sam, who'd give him this _look_ that Jim came to learn meant: _yeah, well, you never knew our dad, so you only have to miss one parent._ There were times when Jim kind of hated Sam too.

But then his mom would come back with stories of adventures – nothing too wild, she only flew with a bunch of scientists after all – and fossilized shells and pressed flowers and insect wings from other fucking _planets_. And they'd all march down to the farmhouse's musty basement, where his mom still kept her old microscope and Petri dishes and stuff. And he and Sam would sip hot cocoa and take turns peering at the slides she made, while she explained about alien cell structures… and Jim would just love her to pieces. And Sam too, but of course he'd never tell his brother that.

So, yeah. His mom might have missed most of his childhood injuries and illnesses, but she was there when, at age seven, he caught the chickenpox – against all odds. (Seriously, they'd actually found a vaccine to which he wasn't allergic, and he still caught the damn thing.) She yelled at Sam for laughing at the blisters and scabs that covered his face and chest. Then she drew a cool bath for him. She sprinkled the water with baking soda and colloidal oatmeal, then perched on the edge of the tub while he played with his plastic dinosaurs – until his fingers and toes started to prune. After that, she hauled him off to bed, slathered him with calamine lotion, and sat next to him, reading _The Book of Three_ aloud – and reminding him not to scratch – until he fell asleep. She did that every night until he was better.

And, sure, he was furious when she missed his third grade class's very abbreviated production of Shakespeare's _Julius Caesar._ (Jim played Mark Antony, which meant he got to wear a toga that used to be his grandma's linen table cloth, wave a cool rubber sword around, and bellow "CRY HAVOC AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR!" which he _loved_.)

But then, when she came back for the summer, she took him and Sam to the Great River Shakespeare Festival – which was in the town of Winona, Minnesota, which he supposed was sort of cool – and they went to all the plays: _Twelfth Night_, _Macbeth_, and _The Tempest_. There was also a workshop for kids, which didn't interest Sam, but Jim loved it – enough to forgive his mom for missing his Antony – because he got to memorize the Saint Crispin's Day speech from _Henry V_ and recite it – without a sword, but still – in front of the festival goers.

Okay, so it bugged him that they didn't get to go on many vacations, the way his friends did. But this one autumn – the one before she married Frank – his mom took a couple weeks shore leave and brought Jim and Sam to Bozeman, Montana to see where Zefram Cochrane launched the first warp ship in 2063. They toured the museum where the _Phoenix_ was displayed, along with some artifacts from humankind's first contact with Vulcan explorers. Jim thought the ship looked like a rickety old pipe that would crumple if he so much as touched it – but he still stood there gawping for a full twenty minutes, fantasizing about taking it up into space on that historic night.

After the museum, they all went for a hike in the surrounding hills. They built a small fire and toasted marshmallows while the sun went down. When the stars came out, his mom pointed out Cassiopeia, Perseus, Cygnus, and the rest. Jim had already learned most of the constellations on his own, but he lay there quietly with his head on her shoulder, just letting her soft voice, the cool mountain air, and that starry, starry sky wash over him.

And no, she wasn't there the first time Frank backhanded him across the jaw. Or the second time, or the third time. But that was kind of the point. Jim was twelve by then, and bored as fuck with Iowa and tired of being left behind. There wasn't a whole lot he could do about that, so he started acting out. First he crashed the Corvette into the Riverside Quarry. Then he started getting into fights at school. Other kids weren't much of a challenge – Jim wasn't big, but he was fast as hell – so he concentrated on Frank and pushing _his_ buttons.

Anyway. His mom wasn't there the first, second, third, or even the last time. But because she came back, it _was_ the last time – she made sure of that – and even as Jim resented her for putting an end to a battle he knew he'd have won eventually, he kind of loved her for it. So he let her kiss his bruised cheek, and then he held her while she cried.

8/2/2009


End file.
